At the moment I am going through the rounds of applying for a new job. It is a tedious as it is time consuming. The thing is: every now and again, I see the job that I really like the look of. I can’t help but get my hopes up and pray, Lord is it this one? Is this the one that you have for me. Sometimes I think I pray that, just because I want to have a permanent job, and a little more certainty about the future, because working through agencies is a pretty unstable way to live.

I don’t know if you’ve ever felt like this. Maybe it’s been about a house that you wanted to buy, or a relationship that you really wished would come to something. You set your heart upon it. And when it didn’t happen you actually felt angry.

Why God I thought this was what you wanted for me, I thought you led me to this, bought this person into my life for a reason.

But then nothing. It just did not work out. And it feels a lot like heart break.

Over the last few weeks I’ve learnt to say something, that in the past I might have thought was a cliched at best; selfish at worst. But it’s something I believe God has been speaking into my Heart:

If not this, then something better.

This isn’t selfish or greedy. It’s about letting go of control. It’s about trusting God, even when it feels impossible. It’s accepting that He really does know best.

When we pray about something with desperation; something that we think would be the best for us; something that is just what we think we need, it takes a lot of faith to say: If not this, then something better.

It takes a lot of faith to admit that the thing that we are holding onto so tightly might not be the something better.

It takes a lot of faith, because the thing we think we want is probably the thing that requires the least risk. It might be something that we desperately want, but it’s probably something comfortable.

The something better is often far beyond the something comfortable. The something better is most likely something quite terrifying.

Jesus didn’t die to give us something comfortable. He died to forgive us from our sins, so that we could live a life we never could on our own. The kind of life that can only point to God and shout: It was all because of him.

It might not be something glamorous, it probably won’t be lots of money and comfort, but it will be the kind of life that God created us for, the kind of life truly worth living.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. (John 10:10)